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{Day 2} 31 Days of Charlotte Mason: The Secret Garden

The crew and I have a secret garden we visit each season. Fall has
arrived in all of it's glory and soon they will cover our beloved
fountain for the cooler seasons. Today we stopped by our garden, played
in the fountain, collected leaves for our leaf project, and enjoyed the
last remaining blossoms from the summer. It was just an ordinary day but
oh what exquisite beauty we found!

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only
now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and
ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn
dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one's head far back and
looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing
and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one
cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty
of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for
thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a
moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a
wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through
and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again
something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes
the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars
waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off
music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Father and mother have no greater delight than to watch the individuality of their child unfold as a flower unfolds.
-Charlotte Mason, Volume One

If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play!
-Charlotte Mason, Volume Three

And first, let us consider where and what the little being is who is entrusted to the care of human parents. A tablet to be written upon? A twig to be bent? Wax to be moulded? Very likely; but he is much more.
-Charlotte Mason, Volume One

Every child has a natural interest in the living things about him which it is the business of his parents to encourage.
-Charlotte Mason, Volume One

Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.
-Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Dear friends, do you have a secret garden or park you enjoy visiting? Don't forget to take a moment in the midst of your busy days. Go out-of-doors and enjoy God's creation!

Never be within doors when you can rightly be without!-Charlotte Mason

Many blessings from our home to yours!

This post is part of a series: 31 Days of Charlotte Mason. You can find all of the daily posts linked on the introductory page. I hope you will continue to join us for this journey through the month of October!